Nope, I haven't completely left the real estate game. In another recent project, I've been building the full social media/real estate experience with a company from my home town of Charleston, the South Carolina Property Pros. In this post, I will explain a little bit about the various way that the Pros are different than other real estate firms in their area and how I came to know them.

About the SC Property Pros

I met Mr. James "Jimbo" Thompson late last year and from our first encounter, I found myself actually impressed with his depth of knowledge about both real estate and construction. Historically, Jimbo has been a residential home builder with years of experience creating anything from bridges to assisted living facilities. I had almost convinced myself that real estate was something I should depart from, having become fed up with working in Brooklyn and even more frustrated with the experience of working with other real estate agents (aside from the Loftninja, of course). Nevertheless, talking with Jimbo inspired me to take on a new project involving real estate which has opened new mental doors and forced me to dig even deeper into developing social media applications. After that first meeting, I decided that the best way to build this company with Jimbo is to do as many things as possible that had never been tried before in the real estate industry. I realized that Jimbo is more like an unRealtor than a REALTOR, as there are few (if any at all) real estate agents in South Carolina who can walk into a property and not only properly represent its features, if the damn thing fell down while he was showing it, the customers could go sit in their car while he rebuilt the damn thing. The stuff that this guy has swimming around in his head about property is unReal! This guy (and his team) can truly build anything. They can look at a property from the street and tell you more than the owner probably even knows.

What is a SC Property Pro?

Certified property inspector

Licensed Home Builder

Licensed Real Estate Agent

Licensed Broker

Property Blogger and Social Media Enthusiast

You Name it!

My first goal was to get The unRealtor excited about blogging and teach him the fundamentals of that game. This, fortunately happened almost instantly. I built him a blog and he went right to town. Jimbo was already active on several social networks, such as Facebook and Myspace, so what i needed to do was develop a branded presence for the Pros on those as well as Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, Etc. You can see most of the places where SC Property Pros are active here:

The SC Property Pros Website

This is where it got really interesting. These days many people operate under the impression that it is now too late to start promoting a new company on the internet (especially in the real estate industry) as the top rankers in search have been there for so long that it seems virtually impossible to climb the SERPS. Plus any new domain will take 6-9 months to get ranked in Alexa and other engines. I had to basically set out to kill years worth of indexed sites based on structure and content. If you know anything about me at all, you know that I am not frightened by a challenge. In fact, with a bit of calculated effort and the time to do it, it is possible. The largest hurdle for me, having worked in New York as an agent for close to 8 years, was learning the ins and outs of an MLS database. Because New York doesn't have an MLS, I had walked around for years with my own personal database of available properties which noone else had access to (except Loftninja) unless I liked them. And because I had maybe 5 real estate agents that I cared for ever, this happened very rarely.

What I noticed right off was the fact that other agents in the Charleston area know zippity-do-da about social media and when they happened to try to implement it in their marketing, they did it all wrong. Cramming property data down your friend's throats will not sell a home-most often it will cause you to lose friends. What we needed was a well connected (social) real estate site with MLS, which broke down into sections for Construction/Custom Home Building Services and Property Inspections. This was (and still is) a difficult task, as its one thing to have your website show up in SERPs for real estate niche, but to become highly indexed for construction services and property inspections too is unheard of. Nevertheless, the unRealtor is a Jimbo of all trades and excluding these areas of focus would have been a shame.

Our First #1 Search Result

Yesterday, Jimbo and I tasted our first slice of SERP success, showing up #1 in the Google search in Charleston. Well, can't say i did it alone. We employed quite a bit

of help from the Loftninja. Although it is for Sunrooms in Charleston, it is a HUGE marker of progress in the construction aspect of the site. Search Engine Optimization is an art more than it is a science. If you think you have it down to a science, you need to look again and get creative. Now we are moving into PHASE TWO, which unfortunately I am sworn to secrecy about and cannot disclose the details of this regional search takeover at this time (please subscribe and come back). What I can tell you is that we will be flying the Loftninja down to Charleston to help with putting the gears into motion on this next phase of development. You can see his influence on the project with this latest ad on Craigslist, where he managed once again to accomplish something never tried before. This time having a little bit of real estate fun, embedding the SC Property Pros tag cloud in a post.

Jimbo Thompson is like the older brother that Loftninja never had-quite a bit more professional than Lninja and waaay more low key. I doubt if Jimbo will ever attempt to learn how to rap, but if you happen to be looking for a real estate guru, construction expert or a certified property inspector in the greater Charleston area, you'd be insane not to call Jimbo Thompson of the SC Property Pros. If his middle name wasn't "Jimbo," it should have be "property." We're almost there Jimbo! Keep up the great work my friend! And by the way...Happy Birthday!

June 09, 2010

Over the past couple of months, I've been working steady with M. Sayyid of Antipop Consortium (aka Sayyid Airborn) on the ELECTRICARMS Virtual Mixtape Tour of America. Conceptually, it is a mashup of Virtual Tour, New Music Model, Mapping and Social Media Experiment. In other words, Electricarms is the very first of its kind, music tour that anyone can take and follow using any device which connects to the internet. I've been playing the part of an entire record label, syndicating Sayyid's stream of geographically based freestyles and exclusives for America. We've completed PHASE ONE (basically the East Coast and just across the Mississippi) and for the past couple of weeks, been in the Lab perfecting PHASE TWO. I'll explain a little bit about the differences between the two in a moment, but first, here are a few of the tracks from phase one, free for you to download.Visit ELECTRICARMS.COM to take the Virtual Tour PHASE ONEFind more music like this on electricarms

Search for Track Via this Mixtape Map

See Phase One in Action in these Locations

About Phase Two

PHASE TWO of Electricarms is about to step up the tour action even more and completely change the rap game, as all of the fans on the tour will now be given a fully interactive, social media and networking experience, which they can access from their computer, iphone, ipad and cell phone. Sayyid is about to drop an exclusive mixtape street single which will be the first track available on the tour for purchase. I heard it last night and let me just say that it completely blows anything else in the industry completely off the planet. Look for the official launch of PHASE TWO early next week.

October 03, 2009

New Pursuits and Imagery

Life's been interesting lately and although I haven't updated this blog in a while, I have been very busy. Home Free Organization is moving right along and in fact, will be the cover story of the newest College of Charleston Magazine "Alumni Issue" in the following weeks. In addition to this, I've been working hard with the Loftninja on some commercial space and taking a LOT of photos, now that I'm back in NYC. My good buddy Ras Dave, reggae/roots/dancehall vocalist extraordinaire has been visiting Brooklyn and we've been taking quite a bit of photos for is new album. Ras Dave has a new social network that I encourage all reggae and dancehall lovers to join. If this isn't enough, I've been working close with M. Sayyid of Anti-Pop Consortium with imagery and video for some upcoming projects. You can check out SayyidAirborn blog for the latest updates.

April 16, 2009

Home Free Organization is my latest endeavor and although I haven't posted to this blog in some time, you can see that I've been working hard elsewhere in the blogosphere on Home Free Org Blog and helping the Loftninja with Ninjalist a little bit here and there. With that said, I thought that it is about time to share some information about the new initiative with my readers on this blog, as you guys are a bit more familiar with my background in anthropology and real estate and might like to know where all of this came from. A new nonprofit initiative such as Home Free is a difficult thing to not only orchestrate, but to create as well. That is why it took me this long (since the original idea back in 2006) to put into action. Nevertheless, ending homelessness on some real level is one of the most important issues plagueing the country and the world today, thus my motivation for not only doing my part but hopefully something far greater.

What is Home Free Organization?

Home Free Organization is a non-profit initiative to eradicate homelessness in urban environments through the provision of free wireless internet, social networking and resource allotment. We take donated bread trucks which have come off route and add donated computers and hardware to create mobile wireless access hubs for homeless individuals to utilize for finding family, jobs, resources and ways off the street. The goal is simple: Provide a resource for the homeless which will allow them to find ways off the street. Of course there are many who prefer the streets to a 9-5 and home life, but for those who are stuck and cannot find there way, Home Free will provide the tools to try.We give every visitor an email address to be used for networking and contact. We provide a focused set of search engines geared toward geneology, people searching, available jobs and other resources available to homeless individuals. Finding the Home Free Truck will be easy, as we will be providing the streets with an 800 number that can be called from any public phone to give the exact location of the truck. It could be at Union Square in Manhattan or Downtown Brooklyn. (via our Facebook Page)

First of all, Home Free is unlike any other nonprofit dedicated to the cause of helping the homeless. Let me preface this explanation with the fact that using the word 'homeless' when referring to those who live in the streets makes me cringe. That is why I officially changed it to "home-free" in the dictionary a few weeks ago. Just yesterday, the Loftninja had another word, "home-o-phobic" published.

One of the biggest reasons why I feel most ideas and projects who address this issue miss the mark is due to the fact that rarely can you find one that meets those who it seeks to help on their own terms or even somewhere in the middle. First, you must not intimidate those who you are trying to help or you will never see them up at the plate. Second, you must be sensitive to their real needs and concerns (such as privacy and security). And third, you must be willing to go a step further than what your organization specializes in so to offer actual assistance and support. What do I mean by this? Well lets see...

Home Free Organization uses 100% donated materials that are largely preowned and previously used. For example, we only utilize used bread trucks as our support vehicle as opposed to big shiny new trucks that might otherwise intimidate a person living on the streets. No one in that position would be keen on the idea of seeking help from a resource that appears to be created and supported by a government entity- and surely would not like the idea of having officials of any sort sifting through thier personal information and search data. As for the computers that we use, they are and will be donated, formatted and reappropriated as well in order to preserve the privacy of both the donar and the user. Home Free visitors will be given their own personal USB thumbdrive which can be used each time they visit one of the Home Free Trucks and once they leave, all of their data will be erased from their visit, insuring that the next visitor will not have access to the personal information of the person before them.

Home Free Organization is an entirely extensible nonprofit initiative. A friend told me the other day that HFO "is like Firefox and every other nonprofit in the world is like its add-ons." We are in the process of recruiting professionals from many different fields such as psychology, drug and alcohol treatment and social sciences such as sociology and of course anthropology. In addition, many volunteers that have stepped up have backgrounds in hair styling, fashion and culinary. When an individual comes to us in need of help finding a job, we not only teach them how and where to search, we find them clothes to wear to an interview, cut their hair for them, take headshots and help them actually get that job. We provide them with a mailing address and an email address and in many cases, connect them with one of the services that are offered for providing phones and voicemail.

Home Free Truck™ (Aerial View)Home Free Truck™ (Aerial View)Justin Farrow/ Loftninjahttp://tinyurl.com/homefreeorg These are the Home Free Organization's Truck ™schematics (aerial view). Home Free Organization is a non-profit initiative to eradicate homelessness in urban environments through the provision of free wireless internet, social networking and resource allotment. We take donated bread trucks which have come off route and add donated computers and hardware to create mobile wireless access hubs for homeless individuals to utilize for finding family, jobs, resources and ways off the street. The goal is simple: Provide a resource for the homeless which will allow them to find ways off the street. Of course there are many who prefer the streets to a 9-5 and home life, but for those who are stuck and cannot find there way, Home Free will provide the tools to try. We give every visitor an email address to be used for networking and contact. We provide a focused set of search engines geared toward geneology, people searching, available jobs and other resources available to homeless individuals. Finding the Home Free Truck will be easy, as we will be providing the streets with an 800 number that can be called from any public phone to give the exact location of the truck. It could be at Union Square in Manattan or Downtown Brooklyn.

Other links where Home Free Organization can be found:

You can find Home Free Organization on your favorite social
networks such as Facebook, Myspace,
Behance Network and yes, Twitter.
Please be sure to visit us there and drop your thoughts for
the world to see.

January 11, 2009

Last night, under the fullest moon of the year 2009, I ventured into the woods of Charleston, SC in search of White Boy Crazy and a place called Fantasy Place- what turned out to be the best 1000 square foot cardboard castle i'd ever been in.
I managed to find both and here are my thoughts on the matter: You gotta hand it to White Boy Crazy, an underground-ish rap group comprised of a few of my homies (who will go nameless in this post) echoing the sounds of pre-rap Beastie Boys, mixed with persona switching styles only matched by the likes of Kool Keith and uh.. and Kierkegaard? In any case....label this what you will. If you like hardcore rap mixed with glorified stupidity and chop-your-ass up killer (original) lyrics, with beats pumping from the fingers of a Giant Gorilla and a demonic bird man topped off with lyrics from a Micheal Myers-like rapper spewing words that could only come from hell...you will love White Boy Crazy.
These guy are definitely among my favorites to see these days...I would love to say that its just "good clean fun" but its not. Its dirty fun. Who knew it was possible to have a blast such as this in Charleston, SC? Rap terrorists, oysters, cardboard castles, beer and love...what more could you ask for? I just wish i could have a Fantasy Place built in NYC...any ideas?

White Boy Crazy creates a uniquely original fusion of punk, rap, halloween and well...um..let's just say it was interesting. Watch the videos and tell me what you think. I was reminded of how the other day i saw a button that said "Punk isn't dead..it just sucks now." I thought of this last night as i watched White Boy Crazy rip up the stage and tear through the crowd, all within the confines of a 40+ foot cardboard castle, affectionately called "Fantasy Place." If you could find the place you were lucky...and must have been pretty resourceful to do so. Charleston folk sure know how to throw a party...

In any case, without further ado, I give you some of the videos i shot from the show.

October 16, 2008

While going through archives, I stumbled across quite a few really interesting shots that I've taken around Brooklyn in reverse negative. They make for some pretty haunted looking photos. A few of these are just flat out creepy looking. Here are a few examples:

Del.icio.us

Various places in space with faces we chase
wasting time like lime wires and square tires flat-
look at where you're at-
now grab that.
all images are exclusive copyright of Justin Farrow 2002-2006
for prints or licensing, please write to me
justinycgmailDOTcom